IMAGE: ISCA Technologies’ SPLAT Bloom is being developed with a USDA grant. It uses pheromones to focus bees brought to orchards on blossoming fruit trees, increasing pollination rates.

Credit: ISCA Technologies

A Riverside, Calif., biotech company will advance eight environmentally-friendly innovations to control damaging crop and forest pests and improve crop yields thanks to $1.8 million in grants it received this year from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

ISCA Technologies received six $100,000 “Phase 1” grants from the department’s Small Business Innovation Research Program to develop and test five new pest control products and one that improves fruit blossom pollination rates. ISCA also received two $600,000 Phase 2 grants to prepare for the commercial market products already shown to have worked in field trials.

These technologies are economical, effective and ground-breaking.

For example, one innovation uses naturally occurring pheromones to induce honey bees to pollinate flowers preferentially in the area where the product is applied. This results in healthier bees, higher pollination rates, and higher crop production. Another puts yeast species to work to brew insect sex pheromones inexpensively, making various environmentally safe control strategies significantly more affordable to growers. And a third launches drones to deploy pheromones and other naturally occurring compounds that control pests by modifying their behavior.